The present invention relates to an improved grid-like construction boat, specifically designed for use as a tender or trip boat.
To have, at sea or lake places, a small boat for performing short trips along the coastline, represents an increasing requirement for those persons spending their free time for hobby or relaxation purposes, or for holidays, at the mentioned water places.
Also known is that pleasure boaters find as increasingly comfortable to use small boats, the socalled "tenders" for accessing the shore, while leaving anchored offshore, at will or as required, their large sail or motor boat.
For meeting the above requirements, the prior art provides a lot of rubber boats, either including or not rigid keels, and small boats made of a glass reinforced resin material, aluminium alloys, or wood materials.
While the above small boats solve the mentioned technical problem, they are however affected by several disadvantages.
In fact, said prior boats, either of a rigid or of a inflatable type hull have a comparatively large size. The rigid hull boats, in addition, also have the further drawback that they take up a large portion of the main boat deck; thus suitable and expensive pulley and rope assemblies should be provided on the main boat deck to hold the tenders raised from water and out-board. The inflatable hull boats, in turn, while being less affected by the above drawback, require very tedious inflating and deflating operations.
Another common drawback of said prior small boats is the comparatively great weight thereof, very critical for the user at the start and end of the sailing season, i.e. when the boats are launched onto water or removed therefrom.
Yet another drawback of prior small boats is their high cost, in particular as they are provided, as conventional, with outboard motors.
Furthermore, the maintenance of said boats, with the exception of small aluminium boats, is very complex; this is true both for inflatable and rigid boats, and, in particular, wood and out-board motor boats.
Actually, the first type of boats require a very skilled and accurate labour, while the second boats require a skilled maintenance on their motor assemblies.
It should be apparent that these maintenance requirements represent an additional cost for the users of said boats which, even if small, can not be however eliminated.
The document WO96/39323 discloses a grid-like construction boat according to the preamble of claim 1.